A 16-year-old already facing armed robbery and kidnapping charges for two incidents on Jan. 13 was arraigned yesterday on new charges of armed robbery, kidnapping and indecent assault and battery for incidents on Jan. 11 and 13, the Suffolk County District Attorney's office reports.

The teen, not named because of his age, had his bail increased from $1 million to $2 million due to the... Read more

Hyundai Rotem, the South Korean company that started delivering commuter-rail trains 2 1/2 years late, is suing the state for awarding the contract to build new Red and Orange Line trains.

In a lawsuit filed this week in US District Court in Boston, Hyundai Rotem alleges winning bidder CNR shmoozed then Gov. Patrick and Transportation Secretary Richard Davey at a secret meeting in Hong... Read more

The good news, the Globe reports is that the manufacturer is paying for the repairs. The bad news is that that means the T has to go back to those creaky old locomotives it thought the new diesels would replace to pull all the new commuter-rail coaches that have also had their issues.... Read more

Around 3:40 p.m. Firefighters quickly doused the fire, in a ground-level closet inside the station, but the T evacuated riders due to the smoke. Trains, however, continued to operate through the station.

A 16-year-old, apparently from Lancaster, was arraigned in Suffolk County Juvenile Court today on charges of armed and masked robbery, assault and battery, and attempted kidnapping for a Tuesday incident on the Red Line between JFK/UMass and Andrew stations and kidnapping and assault and battery with a dangerous weapon for a Monday incident in the area of Fields Corner, the Suffolk County District Attorney's office... Read more

Oh, hey, it's Friday rush hour, so naturally a Red Line train got out a couple of old tokens to pay the ferryman, down at JFK/UMass, and now the entire line has slowed to a crawl and riders are grumbling the inevitable cracks about imagining what service will be like during the Olympics.

What initially seemed like a possible fire on a crossover switch just past North Station around 2:40 p.m. turned out to be smoke from a brake pad on a passing train that got jammed against a wheel, the MBTA says.

The T shut power on the inbound side to let firefighters assess the situation as disabled train was moved to Wellington for repair.

Well, they did warn us. Track problems on the Fairmount Line, a dead train on the Haverhill Line, switch problems on the Kingston/Plymouth Line, signal problems on the Providence/Stoughton Line all add up to commuter woes. There's a dead train somewhere on the Orange Line, and a Green Line trolley pulled into Kenmore with no heat, although as Bart Antista explains:

Transit Police report they are hunting a man they say spat on a 33 bus driver in October, then threatened the driver's life two months later at the same spot on the Mattapan/Hyde Park line when the driver wouldn't let him on the bus.

According to police, the spitting happened around 2:50 p.m. on Oct. 21 on River Street at George Street. Around 1:45... Read more